[News] Haiti - interview with Aristide, NYT

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Hi. We're sending this despite the fact that the article is couched in the 
NYT position that is anti Aristide and Lavelas, that is couched in the US 
rhetoric of 'democracy' and supports the very forces that are tied to the 
violence, the coup attempts, the Fraph violence and US policy of trying to 
destroy a truly people's movement.
It is important to read between the lines and important to read Aristide's 
words.
c


Haiti's Embattled Leader Vows to Finish Term
By LYDIA POLGREEN

Published: February 17, 2004


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 16 - President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, defiant in
the face of an increasingly violent opposition movement, denounced it on
Monday as an effort to overthrow Haiti's elected government and declared
that only he can save the country from civil war.


"We have had 32 coups in our history," Mr. Aristide said in an hourlong
interview with The New York Times at the National Palace on Monday morning.
"The result is what we have now: moving from misery to poverty. We need not
continue moving from one coup d'état to another coup d'état, but from one
elected president to another elected president."

Asked whether he would consider stepping aside to prevent further bloodshed
in a conflict that has killed dozens of people and paralyzed much of the
country, he replied: "I will leave office Feb. 7, 2006. My responsibility is
precisely to prevent that from happening. What we are doing now is
preventing bloodshed."

Speaking in an anteroom outside his spacious office, he called for armed
opposition groups to lay down their weapons and for political opponents to
begin discussions with the aim of having new parliamentary elections as soon
as possible.

"It is time for us to stop the violence and to implement the Caricom
proposal for elections," Mr. Aristide said, referring to the plan of the
Caribbean Community, an organization of Caribbean states, to build trust
between the government and opposition groups as part of the groundwork for
new parliamentary elections.

Political strife has swept the country since 2000, when a dispute over
parliamentary elections that the Organization of American States and other
foreign observers said were flawed led opposition political parties to
boycott the presidential election later that year.

The confrontation has escalated in recent months as opposition groups took
to the streets to protest what they contend is Mr. Aristide's increasingly
autocratic style. This month, the political dispute turned violent, with
armed groups overrunning police stations in a dozen cities and towns.

The violence spread further on Monday. Militants took over the police
station in Hinche, a town about 45 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, the
capital, killing the police chief, The Associated Press reported.

Now, with a violent group of former Aristide supporters in control of
Gonaïves, a major city on the main north-south highway between the capital
and Cap Haitien, the country's second largest city, a crisis looms in the
arid north, where more than a quarter million people need food assistance to
survive.

The current political crisis is a dramatic reversal for Mr. Aristide, once a
parish priest serving in the slums who became the country's first
democratically elected president. He was revered by millions, especially
among Haiti's rural and urban poor, and seen as the savior who would finally
lift the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. He turned in his clerical
collar for a wedding ring, marrying an American-born Haitian, and his
vestments for business suits.

Opposition groups and diplomats accuse him of forming militant gangs that
act as a sort of auxiliary force to the police. One such group is behind the
uprising in Gonaïves. Its leaders say they have joined with sinister figures
from the country's violent past, including the leader of death squads that
terrorized the country after the coup in 1991 that ousted Mr. Aristide. The
United States returned him to power with 20,000 American troops in 1994.

The 2000 elections led to the suspension of $500 million in international
aid, an act Mr. Aristide refers to as an "economic embargo," and he blames
this suspension for his failure to transform Haiti's economy, health and
education. "I don't say I am the best," Mr. Aristide said. "But think of
what I did with nothing in terms of financial resources."

He said his main achievement, however, was reviving Haiti's spirit. He cited
a march on Feb. 7, which the government claims drew a million people in
support of his presidency. "The Haitian people want to live with dignity,"
Mr. Aristide said. "We don't sell our dignity. Dignity is linked to freedom.
We don't sell our freedom.




"If last Saturday, despite the economic situation, one million marched in a
peaceful way, it is because they see we are not lying to them, we are
telling them the truth. Dignity, freedom and truth are linked."

Political and civic opposition groups, who disavow any connection with the
armed uprisings, have said they will not take part in elections until Mr.
Aristide steps down.

"It is impossible to get free, honest and democratic elections with
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the National Palace because he will control the
whole process," said Micha Gaillard, a leader of the Democratic Convergence,
the main opposition group, in an interview on Monday. "But if the first step
for him is not to resign, then he should deliver what Caricom asked him to
do."

The Caricom proposals would require Mr. Aristide to take a number of steps,
from ensuring that opposition marches can go forward to disarming groups of
militants loyal to the president. He must also reform the country's tiny
police force, which has fewer than 4,000 members, and form a governing
council that would include opposition groups. Mr. Aristide said he has begun
taking action on all of those requirements, but offered little concrete
evidence, only future plans.

Mr. Aristide said opposition groups do not support elections because they
are afraid they will lose and would rather let the country slowly
destabilize. "They fear the principle of `one man, one vote,' " Mr. Aristide
said. "They don't fear me; they fear the people. And they don't fear the
people because the people are violent. They fear the people because the
people are ready to vote."

He accused the leaders of political and civic opposition groups of being in
league with the militants who have taken over Gonaïves. "The government is
doing what it can to have a safe environment," he said. "On the other side,
they are killing people, keeping 150,000 people hostage in Gonaïves."

Mr. Aristide condemned the involvement of Louis-Jodel Chamblain, an official
in the former Haitian Army who was accused of committing many atrocities as
part of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, known as Fraph,
after the 1991 coup.

"Fraph and the army killed more than 5,000 people and pigs were eating their
corpses," he said. "And today Fraph is back."

Experts on Haitian politics said the arrival of militants like Mr. Chamblain
had made it all the more urgent that the current crisis be resolved quickly,
before those forces take control of a larger portion of the country.

Henry Carey, a professor of political science at Georgia State University,
said the opposition must abandon its insistence that no elections be held
until Mr. Aristide is gone. "What they should do is put the interests of
country ahead of their own antipathy and own personal enmity," Professor
Carey said.

At the same time, Mr. Aristide must own up to relying on violent gangs and
take the necessary steps to disarm and neutralize them, Professor Carey
said. "What he has got to do is stop the violation of human rights and he
has got to demobilize these violent groups," he said. "But he can't do that
without international help."


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